Testimony of Children (Alice Gray Book 2)

52

My first thought when consciousness returned was one of utter confusion. What the hell was Mary doing here?

It didn't make sense that she would be rambling around the cemetery. Her health was too fragile. They must have cut her loose when they realised that she was more of an encumbrance than a prize.

Heartless bastards.

Then I realised that I couldn't get up, and all other thoughts fled as my brain tried to make sense of the fact that I was a prisoner. Again.

Laid out on something cold and hard, bound with heavy-duty plastic rope, it was dark, and freezing, and I was helpless and pissed beyond words. The stillness in the air and the damp, musty smell told me that we were inside, but it wasn't the catacombs this time. Something about the darkness was different, wider and deeper than those tightly built tunnels of death.

Twisting my head to the side was about the only movement that was possible, but it was worth it when a faint green life-force hovered around the shape of a body about an arms-length away. My companion was so silent that if I hadn't had my extra sense, I wouldn't have known that I had company.

"Hey," I whispered, "are you awake?"

"Alice?"

"Stephen? What the hell? Are you ok?"

"I'm not sure, I can't feel my legs. There's something else, I think they did something to me. My head, it won't stop buzzing."

"It's your witch magic. I can see your life-force starting to grow. What about your legs, did they hurt you?"

"I don't know. They knocked me out with some drug, I didn't even see it coming. Oh, shit. Where's Mary?"

"It's ok, she's outside, they must have let her go. We'll find her. Can you move your arms?"

"No. I think I'm tied to a table or something."

"Perfect," I sighed.

It wasn't like I was holding out much hope that he'd be any less trussed up than me, but we were probably the two most pathetic paranormal creatures that ever existed. Two witches with no clue how to use our power to help ourselves.

Focusing inward I tried to engage with my life-force. If I could just will the power to the surface, I might be able to do something. Sweat beaded on my brow as I concentrated with everything that I had.

Nothing happened.

I sought the pack bond, wondering if that was keeping everything else in check so effectively that my magic was asleep.

I couldn't feel them.

Emily and Evan, and even Lucas. It was like we'd never been connected. That just added another layer of helplessness, not to mention a cold, hollow hole at my centre.

I had to nourish my silver magic somehow. If I could use it, then it meant that whatever Jonathan or the coven had cooked up wasn't yet in effect. It meant that we still had a chance.

I never thought that I would miss the chimes of those silver leaves, but I did. The Tree of Knowledge had brought me my magic. It had also taught me that power meant pain and loneliness. Yet, as I lay there, watching the weak particles of Stephen's newly emerging magic dance around his form, I realised that silver tree had missed something out. My magic might eat up all foreign energy in its wake, but it could also sustain and nourish. I didn't have to be like my father, maybe I could use Stephen's magic and help him too.

All it needed was a bond and nobody could say we were lacking that.

I just had to get my hand free. If I could just touch Stephen, the physical connection would trigger the emotional one, and allow our power to merge. That was the theory.

The plastic rope was wrapped tightly around me, binding my arms close to my body. Wriggling my hand to create some give in the rope, I knew that if I could just make contact with him, I would be able to kick start my magic. The friction of the rope on my hands worried the wounds from the poppets. The sharp sting of the cuts re-opening made me wince but I pushed through the pain.

It was our only chance. Not knowing what had become of my pack, of Mary, a defenceless old lady, drove me to distraction. And then there was Stephen, we were so much more to each other than agent and assignment, however much I'd tried to ignore it. All these people were in my life now. I cared so much for them, and they for me. My life had become full in the last four weeks. Full of love, humour and affection and I wasn't willing to lose it. Not to the psychopath that had trapped us here, not to anybody.

Anger throbbed and bulged round my brain, the emotion too big for me to contain. But still my magic didn't stir.

Slick with blood, my hand finally slipped through the tight rope. My arm flailed wildly for a moment, my muscles cramping from the sudden flow of blood. Failing to make contact for the first three attempts, I gave my arm one final push.

The tips of my fingers connected with Stephen's life-force. The colour had deepened in the minutes that it had taken me to get free as the particles of magic multiplied. His magic was growing fast and I could almost taste the rich flavour, so foreign and familiar at the same time.

Sensation flooded me as his magic fed mine. Through his eyes I saw the first time that we met. How he had been charmed by my clumsy attempt to chat him up at a bar in a meeting that he had orchestrated. Buying me drinks to help me loosen up. Knowing that I didn't believe him when he asked for my number and promised to call, and that I'd given him a fake number out of habit. That when he wrote his own number on a napkin and slipped it into my hand, I wouldn't call him either, out of shyness rather than dislike.

Then, how he had 'bumped' into me the next day as I hurried out of work, tired and hung-over. Taking me to dinner, and laughing with me.

It had been genuine delight.

We slept together that night for the first time, and I knew now that he had been into it as much as I had, even though he had a hidden agenda.

Disgust at himself for lying to me for four years darkened the memories, corrupting the pattern of his magic, making the fresh green particles clump together, heavy with the burden of his guilt until his magic was dirty just like his sense of self.

I understood now.

Stephen had never believed that he deserved our relationship. He didn't think he should have happiness after losing his family. When the vamps took Emily, it was the end of hope for him.

His memories had brought us to the present in the space of a few seconds. The rush of images and emotions spun round my head, warping my own reality with the truth of his.

I lay for a moment too stunned to respond to the influx of information.

I was going to have to put it away to deal with later. I couldn't use the deception of our relationship to keep Stephen at arm's length when I had seen from his own life-force that his feelings for me had been genuine. That our love had been real.

Anger prickled around the edges of the hole in my heart. It had all been sacrificed to the drama of the paranormal world that had opened out before me like some absurd pantomime with me in the lead role.

But I guess I would never have met a guy like Stephen without it.

It was who I was.

It was my world now. My drama.

And when the sweet chimes of the silver leaves sang in my head, I knew I belonged here.
Silver shone out from the particles of my life-force that multiplied around me, knitting the web of my magic strand by strand, into the sequence that was all my own. Stephen's life-force was strong and bright, his power increasing through its symbiotic link to my own.

Revelling in the intimacy of our connection, it took me a few seconds to coax my thoughts back to the crisis of the moment. The warmth fled as I realised what had been planned for us.
That cold stone that I felt beneath me was an altar.

We were sacrifices.

What new hell is this? Can Alice control her magic well enough to help herself and Stephen? Only one way to find out...